The inability to mourn: Past and current challenges for psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

Although the capacity to mourn is ubiquitously acknowledged as critical for individual psychic functioning, the impact of this capacity on a collective social level has been examined to a very limited extent in the psychoanalytic literature to date. The two papers that take up this this topic thus bring various critical and complex issues to our attention. After reviewing and commenting on these papers, I discuss how these issues are particularly relevant today to society in general and psychoanalysis in particular. I believe that the ability to mourn is under siege in the Western world at present, with respect to both “macro” mourning that is, mourning for significant losses such as a beloved person, ideal, or country, and “micro” mourning or mourning for losses inherently and unavoidably implicated in choices we make in everyday life. These mourning processes are undermined by the impact of complex socioeconomic parameters on psychic functioning, as evidenced by various internal problems and symptomatology characteristic of our times. In turn, difficulties in mourning contribute to social problems including social injustice, wars and the climate crisis. As psychoanalysts we are called upon to address these issues in our clinical work as well as in our global community.

KEYWORDS:

• Global mourning difficultites
• social antecedents
• social consequences

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Notes

1 Earlier studies have made similar observations regarding the emperor’s position (Leighton and Opler 1946).

2 Now extended to six months in the DSM 5 R.

3 These findings indicate that the mental health crisis among the younger generation began considerably before the COVID-19 pandemic, although the pandemic may have contributed to it.